


Wound (you're inside me)

by DarlingNikki



Series: Touched [3]
Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: BAMF Kate, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Surviving, learning new skills, thieves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-20
Updated: 2014-11-20
Packaged: 2018-02-26 09:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2647526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarlingNikki/pseuds/DarlingNikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Richie and Kate's interlude in the back room, Kate is uneasy, and her fears are proven right.<br/>What came during, and what comes after, Kate learns to pick herself back up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wound (you're inside me)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "We're in this Together" by Nine Inch Nails. Trent Reznor is my spirit animal okay? This song holds a special place in my heart, since I walked down the aisle to it at my wedding. This story is a bridge, between the previous two pieces, and what I want to happen next, so be patient with me please? I'm pretty pleased with it, though, but it seriously derailed my prompt a day exercise, since I had to get this out. More to come in this series though! I've got plans!

The woman on the stage, she shines. Her dance is captivating, the fluid movement of her hips to the music. It's sexual, sensual in a way Kate has never seen before, and Richie is enthralled. Kate wraps her arms around herself, more uncomfortable than she's been at any point tonight, even when Seth had walked in on her and Richie. Kate watches the woman, Santanico, writhe on the table standing above Richie like that is her place, her right. Richie worships, following her every move with his breath held, and he doesn't seem to see the coldness in her eyes as she looks down upon him. Kate does though, she sees the carefully hidden contempt under Santanico's seductive facade.

Richie never looks back over at Kate though, sitting where Seth had marched her to the table and sat her down.

Kate's eyes flutter closed while Santanico raises her foot to Richie's mouth and she pours a long stream of tequila into Richie's waiting mouth. There's a double image in front of her, a well dressed man seething with rage while being told to lick someone's shoes. It was a violation, a way to assert dominance, and Kate sees that image laid over Santanico and Richie and she pulls her arms tighter around herself and shivers. This is the same. She's not sure if what she's seeing is real or not, but it feels true to her. _Is this what Richie meant by “seeing”?_

Kate hasn't been nearly as afraid of Richie or Seth today, holding her at gunpoint or threatening her family, as she is of this woman dancing seductively on the table in front of her.

 

* * *

 

Kate's fears are proven right.

Things went straight to Hell in the Titty Twister, after Santanico's dance. Freddie stabbed Richie, and then that woman changed into a monster straight out of myths or nightmares. Death and blood, murder and madness and her family was trapped in the middle of it all. She survived though. She survived, and she did get to see that place for what it was, just like Richie had wished. Although she doesn't know why he thought it was beautiful. That place was ugly with a coat of cheap body glitter smeared over it.

That place may have shown her the truth, of her mom's death, of her father's fallibility, but that was not enough to make up for the price she paid. Scott's a monster. Scott's a monster who is directly responsible for her having to put a stake through her daddy's chest. She's got blood on her hands now. She doesn't think it will ever wash off.

She will never be clean again, and all she can think of is _where's Richie?_ Seth hasn't spoken to her since she got in the car, and he's not mentioned Richie once. _Is he dead?_ She doesn't know.

She doesn't know what happened when they got separated, and there is a hole inside her. She can feel it in her chest, gaping wider with each second that passes, a maw that can never be filled.

Seth drives silently, he never even turns the radio on for background noise, and Kate's tired in her bones. She's wrung out and her body is an aching bruise.

She doesn't try to make him speak.

She's not sure what she'd ask him or what she'd tell him.

 

* * *

 

This is a thing that neither Kate nor Seth knows.

Down in the tunnels underneath the bar, when Richie was bleeding out on the floor, he called for them both. Wet gasps of “Kate” and “Seth” were his last words as man.

Richie doesn't even remember this, he was too far gone into agony as his lung collapsed to know what he was saying.

 

* * *

 

Kate and Seth don't talk the first night. They hold on to their pain, curling up separately like wounded animals, trying not to show weakness.

Kate's wearing Richie's shirt. She holds herself and pretends that it's him wrapped around her. His scent surrounds her.

Seth doesn't look closely at the lump in the other bed, if he doesn't look, he can pretend it's Richie instead of Kate.

Richie's broken glasses rest on the nightstand between them.

 

* * *

 

The next morning Kate wakes up wrapped in Seth's arms. She thinks of last night, crawling into Seth's bed to quiet his screams, and feels as close to safe as she's felt since the fragile moment she'd shared with Richie in the back room of the bar.

She's here, with Richie's brother, instead of her family and it takes all of her restraint not to laugh at the irony in the situation. It looks like Richie got his wish after all. She's here, with his ghost, and she's never going to escape him.

Bright sunlight filters through the gaps in the closed curtains, and Kate can see particles of dust floating through the air, casting the hotel room in a weak, wavering glow like Kate's back in the pool looking up at the sky from underneath the water. There's a stillness to Seth, he breathes softly into her neck, peacefully, and a rubber band wrapped around Kate's heart snaps. Her voice is thready, but she speaks out loud, if only so she won't feel so weighed down by what she's carrying inside of herself. “I'd met Richie before, you know.” She sighs, Seth's asleep, it won't matter if she says this, but she needs to. “It was right after my mom died. I'd just needed to escape . . . from myself, from my house, from everything. He was kind to me. We talked and it was just nice. He listened to me. We knew each other.” She quietly sobs, thinking of Richie's smile like a little boy, so pleased, so warm and wide. His eyes looking up at her, worshiping from where he knelt between her legs, and how he saw right through her. “I miss him.” Her voice breaks on the last syllable. “But, I was just a girl he screwed in dark corners of different bars, I guess . . . and there's no way he would've left you behind, so he must be dead.” Kate starts to disentangle herself from Seth's arms, so she can be gone before he wakes, but Seth's arms tighten and hold her in place like iron bars.

“He cared about you.” Seth's stubble scratches her skin. “He was always terrible at dealing with other people, came on too strong, too strange, and scared them.” He continues gruffly, “But with you, it seemed easy for him.”

Kate feels tears running down her face, branding a path down her cheeks. “I wish I'd had more time with him, and I feel guilty for it. What would my daddy say?” She sobs, louder, “I killed my daddy, and now I'm alone.”

“I let Richie go with that snake bitch.”

“What? He's alive?” There's bird beating inside of Kate's chest at those words. She doesn't have a name for it.

“For a given value of alive, yeah, he's one of those Mexican Dracula’s now though.”

The fluttering in Kate's chest stills. “Oh.”

“But you're not alone, princess. I'm here.”

Kate's tongue darts out and licks a tear from her lips. The salt flavor burst across her taste buds, and she thinks for a second before replying. “Where do we go from here though?”

“Forward.”

 

* * *

 

They drive to Chihuahua. It's a large enough city for them to blend into without much problem. They set up shop at another cheap motel, and Seth leaves Kate alone. He warns her not to open the door for anyone but him.

She doesn't see him again until it's nearly dusk, and she's ready to crawl out of her skin by that point. She'd tried watching TV, but she couldn't concentrate on it when he's out there somewhere, doing something. High school Spanish class hadn't taught her enough to be able to understand what's going on with the show anyway. She paces the room, and when she finally hears the door lock click with the turn of a key, Kate lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding.

She runs over and undoes the chain lock from the inside of the door and swings it open to see Seth standing there holding a paper bag of food and a bottle of liquor.

“Dammit, princess, you didn't know that was me. It could've been anyone.”

“Seth, I heard the lock, and you're the only one with a key.”

He looks at her mulishly, “Someone could have picked the lock.”

“Fine, I'll wait until you say something before I open the door next time.”

He sits the food down on the table. “Good girl. I've got dinner, and we've got enough cash now to last for a while.”

“How?” Kate asks suspiciously, thoughts of him robbing passing through her mind.

“Sold that flashy car. If we keep riding around in something like that, as nice as it was, someone's gonna get ideas and try to roll right over us.”

“What are we going to use to get around in since you sold the car?”

“It's easy enough to get a car. I'll show you how.”

 

* * *

 

Days pass. Nights pass. Kate survives.

The hole inside her chest aches at night. She doesn't cry though. She's done with crying. Instead, she watches Seth, and she learns.

Her new skills help her to focus on something other than that night, at least during the day.

 

* * *

 

The first thing Seth teaches her, is how to break into a car.

“First things first, stick to older models for this, most of the newer ones have features that make this much harder.”

Kate nods, and watches as he screws off the antenna from the back of the car. “Why are you doing that?”

“We don't have the keys, but this works just fine for unlocking the door.” He grins at her, and then slides the thin piece of metal down through a gap in the door frame and door. It only takes a few seconds, then he's opening the door and sliding inside. He reaches over and unlocks the passenger door for her. “Come on, princess, get it. I'll show you how to start it.”

She slides in, and he's pulling a screwdriver out and prying the plastic off of the steering column. His hands reach underneath, and she can't exactly see everything, but Seth keeps up a running commentary as he works. “Okay, now you need to find the battery wires, then you strip those, and twist them together to get power.” He pulls two wires and uses a small knife to cut them then deftly twists them together. “Now connect this to the ignition wire.” The radio comes on blaring music, Kate jerks nervously, and reaches over and shuts it off, hoping that no one nearby heard. Seth smiles, “Now here's the dangerous part,” he strips another wire and holds it carefully, “this is the starter wire. It's live, so don't touch it with your bare hands unless you wanna electrocute yourself. Just touch it to the battery wires.” The car starts. “Then you're golden!”

He revs the engine a couple of times, then pulls out.

Kate's amazed. It only took Seth maybe five minutes to get the car started. “Wow. I think I'm going to need to practice. There's no way I'll be able to do that as quickly as you.”

“You'll learn. It's just like riding a bike, once you learn, you'll never forget.” He looks over at her. “I'll show you the ropes, soon you'll be a pro at this. Next time I'll find a real simple car for you to practice on, hell, some of them you just need to shove a screwdriver in the key's slot to break the starter pin and then turn.”

 

* * *

 

Kate picks things up quickly. Seth shows her the ropes, and he's patient with her, even when she messes up and almost gets them caught the first time she puts her newly acquired hot-wiring skills to the test.

He teaches her other things too. He takes her out into the desert, sets up empty bottles on some rocks, and shows her how to shoot a gun. She's good at it. Turns out that aiming a gun isn't much different than aiming a crossbow, and she got plenty of practice at that.

After a couple of weeks, when they stop to practice, she's confidently shooting the bottles off the rocks with her shots. It's as easy as breathing. Breath in, and then pull the trigger as she's breathing out. _Bam_ and then glass shatters. Each time she pulls the trigger she pictures Santanico's face as a target, and sees Santanico fall when her shots connect.

Seth goes out without her again soon after their last shooting lesson. Kate doesn't open the door until he calls out, “Honey, I'm home,” in a mocking singsong.

“Good girl.” He sits down bags on the table. “Good girls get gifts, princess.” He rummages through the bags and pulls out a gun and slides it across the table to her. It's silver and it's smaller than the one that Seth had her use to practice with, it fits comfortably in her hands.

It's solid in her hands. This is her new reality. She pops the clip out and checks it, currently unloaded, then sets it back down on the table. “I want to practice with it.”

“Ready and raring to go, hon?”

Kate looks down at the gun. “I just need to make sure I can use it.”

“You shouldn't have any problems, my ex swore by this one. She said it was easy to use and didn't ruin the lines of her clothes. It was her perfect accessory.” He pushes the bag the gun came out of over to her, and Kate looks inside, there's extra clips and boxes of bullets as well as a holster for her to wear it with. “Got you everything you'll need to go with it too.”

Kate looks up at Seth, and there's a tentative warmth growing inside of her. She's grateful. She's glad to see proof that Seth realizes that she can take care of herself. She's curious though, “You were married?”

“Yeah, Vanessa was fantastic, a wildcat in bed, and a fantastic thief, but things just didn't work out. We made each other crazy. We'd fight, all the damn time, and all the makeup sex in the world couldn't fix us.” He smiles fondly. “She couldn't get along with Richie though. He scared her, and I couldn't leave Richie. We were all each other had.”

Kate winces at the mention of Richie, and hopes that Seth missed it. “Family's important.”

“Damn straight, princess.” He slaps his hand on the table and pulls out a bottle of booze from another bag and pushes a bag of fast food over to Kate. “We'll leave in the morning, funds are running low, so we'll have to figure out what to do to get more.”

 

* * *

 

Kate doesn't sleep well. She tosses and turns and dreams of Richie. She sees him by the pool at the Dew Drop Inn. He's sitting across from her perched on a lounge chair, watching. The water in the pool turns red, bubbling from the center, congealing. Suddenly, Kate's terrified. The sky turns black and starless and deep, and Richie isn't watching her anymore. His eyes are focused on the pool. Kate's eyes are drawn along the same path Richie's are focused on, and she _sees. Santanico_ rises from the pool with blood running in rivulets down her taut stomach.

She walks across the deck leaving bloody footprints behind her.

She's behind Richie, grabbing a fistful of his hair, tilting his head up and exposing his neck. “He's mine, little girl. You never mattered at all after he finally found me.”

Richie lets Santanico grip him, but his eyes find Kate's. _Eyes find eyes._ All Kate can see in Richie's eyes is terror and pain.

Kate wakes gasping for breath, with the knowledge that she has to do something. Seth and her can't continue to wander aimlessly anymore.

Richie needs them.

Richie _needs_ her.

**Author's Note:**

> pinkglitterygoth.tumblr.com


End file.
